Pressured
by NursingSchoolGrad
Summary: Ichigo Kurosaki survived the Shattered Shaft, but he wasn't expecting these side-effects. Random healthcare related humor. (You have been warned.)


_A/N: Immediately after the Shattered Shaft storyline. I don't know enough about Japanese culture to prevent this from being OOC, sorry._

 _Also, I don't even know if non-medical people will "get" this. Slightly, AU._

 _I don't own Bleach or make money off this story. Posted May 31, 2015.  
_

* * *

Ichigo Kurosaki was now certain that the people at Urahara Shoten were not human. He turned Urahara's hat around in his hands half expecting to find some evidence for this, but finding no antenna holes or anything out of the ordinary, he contented himself by setting it on his own head.

"Hey!" Urahara said. "I said you could _capture_ my hat, not keep it."

Ichigo turned to the man, "I think I'd like this as a souvenir."

"A souvenir? Are you saying this isn't your style, soul reaper?" Urahara said, waving the hollow mask he'd nabbed off Ichigo in one hand.

"Okay, fine, we'll trade them back." Ichigo said, frowning as usual. As he took the mask, Ichigo noted that is seemed to draw to his skin – as if by a magnetic pull. The material was hard, white, and smooth. He almost dropped it when he realized what it was: bone. And it had come from _him_. Instinctively he put a hand to his chest, feeling for the hole that had formed there when he had nearly turned into a hollow. His chest was solid, but he felt an emptiness there too, one he didn't remember before.

"Alright, now that that's over, it's time for the next task!" Urahara grinned.

"But _you said_ there were only three!" Ichigo complained.

"There's more to saving Rukia than becoming a soul reaper." Urahara said, leading them back towards the ladder out of the "basement".

"Like what?" Ichigo asked.

"Well, _dinner,_ duh." Jinta, interjected.

"For the last time, I'm a disembodied soul, and not a hollow. I'm not hungry." Ichigo said, pointing at his chest.

"Disembodied, huh, what about your other half?" Jinta said.

"What about…" Ichigo started and then stared as they came around a boulder and he saw his human body still lying in the dust. "You – _you_ just _left_ my body here for _three days!"_

"Well, you didn't tell us to do anything else with it." Urahara complained.

Ichigo sighed and went to climb back into his body, but it didn't work. Before, all he had to do as a soul was touch his human body and his soul would automatically be vacuumed inside; now, as he laid his hand on his shoulder, it was like touching someone else. Growling, he tried again. " _Urahara!"_

"Yes?"

"I can't get back in my body!"

"And?"

"What did you do?"

"I'm guessing this is because I cut your chain of fate…" Urahara offered.

"NO!" Ichigo screamed. "If I can't get back, my family and friends will never see me again! It's as bad as if I were dead."

"Well you definitely would be dead if you had gone to the Soul Society without any soul reaper powers – dead meat, that is." The kid said.

Ichigo gave him his infamous scowl that only teenagers can get away with.

"Cut the drama," Urahara grumbled. "You can return to your body, but since it's no longer bound to your soul, it sees your soul as a different person. You must learn to overcome this."

"But I – _it -_ hasn't eaten in three days." Ichigo grumbled.

Urahara just grinned underneath his raveled hat as he sprung up the ladder after the other. Ichigo frowned, picked up his human form, and pulled himself up the ladder after them.

* * *

At ground level, it wasn't any better. Ichigo still couldn't merge his soul into his body – after Jinta teased him, he even tried knocking heads with himself, but of course all that did was give him a headache.

Ururu looked sympathetically at him, "You have to eat." And slipped a "soul candy pill" into his human half's snoring mouth.

Immediately "Ichigo" jumped up to attention like a jackhammer. "Number one-five, at your service."

"Not this again…" Ichigo moaned.

"I am here to help, Soul Reaper. From good posture to good grades, I can do it all." He smiled and the rest of Urahara's friends laughed to see this expression on "Ichigo's" face as the real Ichigo scowled in the corner. "But first, I detect that this body is in want of nourishment. Kind sir, where might I find provender?"

Jinta snorted with laughter – he wasn't usually called _sir_. "Over…there…" He said, pointing to the next room, barely able to stop laughing enough to get the words out.

"One-five" marched stiffly into the next room, and practically hovered over the table as he devoured an entire chicken before their eyes. Although, he ate properly, Ichigo was astonished to watch him finish eating in a mere ten seconds. Apparently this substitute soul was built for speed.

"I graciously thank you for your meal, kind hosts." "One-five" said. "What must I accomplish in this following time?"

"Well," said Urahara. "Most of us sit down after a meal – _if not_ during _a meal –_ before we fix the roof, weed the garden, and dust the house."

"One-five" nodded, sat abruptly on a cushion, grimaced and sprang quickly to "his" feet. He then ran out the door.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Ichigo yelled, chasing him.

"I must needs repair this roof, weed the garden, and dust this establishment." "One-five" said.

"No, not so fast! You'll give me a belly-ache. Sit down." Ichigo pushed him to the ground.

"OW!" "One-five" yelped as he hit the ground and rolled onto his knees.

"Ow?" Ichigo asked.

"It hurts to sit down, sir." "One-five" explained.

"That…shouldn't happen." Ichigo mumbled.

"I have a pain level of five on a scale of one to ten with ten being the worst radiating from the coccyx."

"Well, that's succinct." Urahara said.

Ichigo pushed his palm into his forehead. He knew what had happened – they'd left his body in one place for three days and it had gotten a pressure ulcer. He'd heard enough about these from his dad who ran the medical clinic.

"What's the matter?" Urahara asked, coming up behind them.

"Oh, nothing," Ichigo grumbled. "Just that you've given my body a pressure ulcer the size of Tokyo!"

"Well, I suppose we could send One-five to your dad for treatment." Urahara suggested.

One-five, who apparently had a map in his head, started marching down the street toward the Kurosaki home.

"No!" Ichigo yelled. "Get back here! My dad can't see me like this!"

"Literally." Jinta joked, remembering how Kurosaki Isshin supposedly couldn't see the supernatural.

"No, I mean, my dad will know you are not me (I hope), and then everyone will be confused!" Ichigo said. "Get back here!"

"My, my, it appears you'll have to catch him." Urahara said. "Think of this as 'Lesson Four'."

"AUUUGH!" Ichigo yelled, chasing after his body.

"He never seems to learn," Urahara reflected. "Unless he's under pressure. This time, it was in more than one way."

THE END

* * *

 _Author's Apology for This Work: basically, nursing school teaches you to be assessing the health of your patients constantly. When I read manga volume 8, the main thing that stuck in my brain was that Ichigo's body would've had ill effects from just lying on the ground for three days. Yes, I know Ichigo survives deadly chest wounds all the time: so far he has survived being stabbed through the heart and the vena cava. He has had lung punctures with no collapsed lungs. He has even been sliced halfway through in the waist… And I am only on manga volume 15! Yes, I enjoy the story, but I am skeptical._

 _*Cringes at attempt to write fiction about pressure ulcers.*_


End file.
